It's a week of double main events: the Briscoes and the All-night Express battle for a top contendership to the tag team championship. Meanwhile, Michael Elgin looks to crush Eddie Edwards hopes of a World title shot.

Kevin Kelley and Nigel McGuinness start off in the ring. They run down the card for tonight: Eddie Edwards vs. Michael Elgin and The All-night Express vs. The Briscoes.

Briscoes cut a promo talking about how ANX used to carry their bags. They ramble almost incoherently. It's awesome stuff! Let them be who they are and they'll sell tickets. #1 rule of wrestling, the best personalities are the ones where guys play themselves only amplified.

The All-night Express go next and we get a look back at their bloody battles. It's a good enough promo, but not as awesome as the prior one.

Match #1: The All-night Express (Kenny King/Rhett Titus) vs. The Briscoe Brothers (Jay/Mark Briscoe). Continuity rears its ugly head as this is a #1 contenders match, despite the All-night Express already being #1 contenders as a result of winning Ladder War 3 and they have yet to receive their title opportunity. And it's not like you can say that the title-shot they won is on the line, because regardless they're getting their title match at Glory by Honor X (which ISN'T on iPPV despite a killer main event: Davey Richards vs. El Generico). Tale of the Tape puts the Briscoes as veterans, but otherwise they're pretty even. Kenny King is immediately the face-in-peril. Doesn't last too long as things go outside and then ANX take over. I imagine this doesn't last much longer. Mark gets worked over by ANX. It's amazing just how far Rhett Titus has come. Jay sneak attacks Rhett and that should set Rhett up in the Ricky Morton-role, which is something he's becoming the best at in modern pro wrestling. Titus makes the hot tag finally to King and King, of course, destroys the Briscoes. Mark saves Jay from an attack and the end result is Rhett Titus dives on to them outside. Spinerbuster/flying double kneedrop gets two for ANX. They go for the One Night Stand but Jay fights out of it. Now the Briscoes are going to murderize Kenny King. Fans start chanting "Man up!" One thing I hate about ROH fans, they refuse to get into the heel/face-dynamics. Mark and Titus fight onto the commentary table which displeases Nigel and Kelly. Jay catches King with a sneak inside cradle following a low blow to get the win and become the second set of #1 contenders to the tag team championship. Todd Sinclair suspects shenanigans, but there's nothing he can do. Unsurprisingly, Rhett Titus is not content to let things settle and picks a fight with the Briscoes. Referees, students, and security work to separate them. Kevin Kelly attempts emotion, poorly, by saying "This is insane!"

Blast. Green Lantern Fan is in the background. Hate that guy. They do a slow-motion replay of the low blow from the Briscoes/ANX-match. King's selling with the slow-motion make it look incredibly hilarious.

ROH Focus On: Wrestling's Greatest Tag Team. They talk about how they come up and how tough it is being champions. They talk a big game about their amateur athletic careers. Benjamin helped train Brock Lesnar, just FYI. And all of that is built up to them saying "I'm a Ring of Honor World Tag Team Champion." Little things like that make the championships important. Haas says the championship is the greatest thing they've ever held as a tag team. Haas says "Screw you!" to the Briscoes. Haas is a great promo for his character. Benjamin still needs work.

Kevin Kelly is ringside with Jim Cornette to discuss the finish of the last match. Cornette's calls the ref's decision final even though everyone knows that it's crap. Cornette says neither team, however, is #1 contender (even though ANX are).

Inside ROH: The House of Truth and the possibility of Richards/Edwards II (really, III). Cornette thinks Truth Martini is a con-artist. Truth does his schtick about seeing the world with the truth. Richards does not care for Truth. Cornette brings up how Roddy couldn't win the world title for six years, but when he partnered up with Truth it took six months. They also talk about Michael Elgin, who is a damn beast in ROH. Cornette calls Elgin Roddy's "policeman." I love that, because once upon a time – Roddy Strong was Austin Aries' "policeman." A policeman, BTW, is a guy who softens a challenger up for the champ. Elgin does a good enough promo talking about being "unbreakable." Truth has come a long way since his debut a year ago. Really good stuff from him. Next up is talk about a potential rematch for Richards/Edwards. Edwards makes my day by immediately reminding us this would be the third in the series. They both want to do it again.

Main Event: Eddie Edwards vs. Michael Elgin (w/ Truth Martini). Eddie Edwards adds a Rocky-quote to his entrance theme. Bobby Cruise does the big-match intros. Cut to commercial to start, and Jay Lethal does one of the live event shills. And he does an EXCELLENT job. This is the guy who used to be most famous for cutting horrid promos in ROH! "Tonight! Is the night! I've been waiting for!" I missed the Tale of the Tape. Anyway, this is the technician vs. powerhouse. It must be late in the taping, because the crowd has disappeared which is not good for a visual. You can fix this by keeping a tight shot. Back-and-forth strikes from both men. Elgin over-powers Edwards to start. Kelly brings up that Truth is a "Life Intervention Expert," which of course stands for "LIE." Elgin at one point counters an arm drag with a powerslam, but it doesn't land. After some good countering, Edwards is in control but Elgin quickly over-powers him again which takes us to commercial. Elgin continues to over-power Edwards afterward. Edwards manages his comeback with a series of strikes followed by the belly-to-back suplex into a gourdbuster. Action gets back-and-forth with Eddie continuously outsmarting Elgin, including a dive to the outside. Weird moment sees Kelly hyping live events and, mid-match, they cut to the standard ROHwrestling.com advertisement. Bush league. They do a nice series of spots on the apron, culminating with a doublestomp by Edwards onto Elgin. They trade a few more counters before Edwards finally hits the Die Hard to win. Match did an excellent job of establishing Elgin as a beast and Edwards as a masterful and smart wrestler. Roddy comes out for some drama, but Nigel McGuinness of all people enters the ring to back up Eddie Edwards. Not sure what that's about. I wonder if Nigel is allowed to work? In any event that ends the show.

That was the last episode of the initial taping. Terrific wrestling throughout that one, but the production values were still lacking. Hopefully, the next few episodes won't suffer as badly. I'm not confident. The next set comes from Louisville and in the arena former WWE developmental promotion, OVW, uses. They'll still be in the introductory phase, but man, I can't wait until we get some real storylines going!

Until next time, here's your .GIF of the week:

Written or Contributed by: syxxpakk

Support our sponsors:

Help spread the word, loyal readers! Share this story on social media:

Comment without an Outhouse Account using Facebook

We get it. You don't feel like signing up for an Outhouse account, even though it's FREE and EASY! That's okay. You can comment with your Facebook account below and we'll take care of adding it to the stream above. But you really should consider getting a full Outhouse account, which will allow you to quote posts, choose an avatar and sig, and comment on our forums too. If that sounds good to you, sign up for an Outhouse account by clicking here.

Note: while you are welcome to speak your mind freely on any topic, we do ask that you keep discussion civil between each other. Nasty personal attacks against other commenters is strongly discouraged. Thanks!

Help spread the word, loyal readers! Share this story on social media: